'All you can eat'

Probably one of the most dangerous places to go when you're trying to be mindful about your eating habits

After a fantastic day exploring Northumberland, my boyfriend and I decided to revisit an old faithful restaurant called 'Tenji' in Newcastle. We set off slightly earlier from his parents house as I really wanted to see if we could find the Geordie Shore house (from the amazing telephone show, 'Geordie Shore' where every episode is the same and they drink, have sex and fight with each other) A few months ago, I visited my friend in Wales and we decided to do a day trip to Cardiff, where we found 'The Valleys' house (same format of show but people based in Wales) and took photos of each other outside - Everyone has to have a hobby, right?

Sadly, it turned out that the Geordie Shore house was actually on a business park which was guarded by security guards so unfortunately we weren't able to take any photos so the best I could do was 'tag' myself on Facebook as being less than 100m from the house - which still seemed to get kudos from my work friend who usually watches the show with me.

We turned up at Tenji, really looking forward to a nice meal, however on this occasion, it wasn't as great as we hoped. We got shown to a corner table near a fire exit, not given a drinks menu for 10 minutes and once we were actually able to order, our drinks never arrived so after another 15 minutes, my boyfriend politely enquired as to where they were and they finally arrived.

One thing that really, really annoys me is bad service and last night it was incredibly poor. Our waitress totally ignored us so half way through the night we seemed to switch waitresses. She was a lot better, but even paying the bill was a lot of effort. 

I knew that going to an all you can eat restaurant would prove challenging, however I don't want to remain a hermit for the rest of my life, so need to deal with these situations and just learnt to eat accordingly. On the first 'round' I stuck to sushi, which is my staple favourite. Unfortunately, I think I was too hungry, not having eaten for the previous 8 hours since lunch, so the sushi disappeared incredibly quickly, despite me wanting to try and take my time and be mindful about what went in my body - As soon as I had one piece, I wanted more and more.

I did manage to stick to mostly less processed and healthier foods, however. Opting for some sashimi (raw fish) and raw fish over curries, fried rice etc and despite all of the deserts staring at me, managed to muster up enough willpower to actually not eat any. Did I overeat? Yes, I think I did, as I was actually quite full after my first plate of sushi and didn't need to go up and get additional food no matter how healthy it was. However, I'm going to notch it up to experience and be proud of the fact I didn't eat any pudding and was able to finally recognise that my body was full and didn't need anything else.

After our meal, we decided to take advantage of the nice night and as it was only 9:30pm, went for a walk round St Mary's lighthouse. It was a lovely night, albeit slightly cold and we were amazed by the amount of cars in the car park at that time. I joked they were probably all drug dealers and my partner joked that they were probably dogging. 

I shouldn't have Googled 'St Mary's Lighthouse' as it turns out it IS one of the most prolific dogging spots in the North! We had a good chuckle when back in the car :-)